Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

there are so many of those innocent white people movies where something TERRIBLE happens and they realize the world isn't what they thought it was! how dare you put ME in a Singapore prison! all those endless times where America lost its innocence....

x-post

i think i was kinda born thinking a safe was going to fall on my head at any minute...

at my kid's school they were taught at a young age to stick up for people who were hurt or being hurt and they believe that that is important now! that's just one small example. of social engineering that i can get behind.

My daughter's school is REALLY heavy on overt character-education stuff, in a way that I found kind of strange when she started (a bit protest-too-muchy maybe?). But I definitely think it's an improvement over the Lord-of-the-Flies zoos of my childhood. The culture has changed as well. You don't get beaten up on the playground for being named Hayden or whatever (because pretty much everybody is named Hayden or whatever).

My son's school doesn't make as much of a deal about it out loud, but in practice they have proven to be extremely accepting of difference and extremely committed to inclusion. (Speaking mainly in terms of people with disabilities here, as that's what I know all too well.)

This in a deep blue and obscenely affluent school district, but still.

My mom has passed off lots of comments from an elderly man at her church that she befriends--he makes off-color comments to her and they go right over her head. When I bring it up later, she's almost maternal in her empathy and care for him. "He just needs to feel like a man," "Oh honey, once a Marine, always a Marine" (wtf does she know about Marines?? nothing, that's what), and other brush offs that prioritize HIS feelings and well-being.

"(because pretty much everybody is named Hayden or whatever)"

i was looking at a collection of class poetry from my oldest kid's class a few years back and one of the poems had the line: "and i hang out with my friends who are named after trees..."

lots of kids named after trees.

like how? silver birch? sycamore? palm?

that's interesting YMP - I was talking with a parent friend of ours (lesbian couple w/two kids) about their experience w schools out near Walnut Creek and she was telling me about their 5th grade son getting harassed/called a faggot for having long hair. And I was like "damn some things never change"

xp to in orbit
my grandfather (who died earlier this year) was never necessarily off-color but had the weirdest dynamic with women after the death of my grandmother nearly thirty years earlier. there's something to the idea that the attention of women is currency in how he related to people. that's not atypical for people who aren't used to being alone, but being around him became very one-note because he had a list of topics that he knew would interest people or get female sympathy and as he became senile, every conversation was just going through that checklist.

I mean, I'm all for treating the elderly with respect and humoring them, but this maternal bit you mentioned definitely sounds too familiar

Yeah but at the same time she was mothering him he was sexualizing her. Like she was putting him in a fatherly role, and he was putting her in a wifely one. Gross.

feel like i've seen that dynamic work in reverse and it's just as creepy.

"like how? silver birch? sycamore? palm?"

Cedar and Willow are big.

see also: Mike Pence calling his wife "mother" for a glimpse of the dynamic from the other end of things

Oh heck my parents call each other Mom and Dad all the time. I don't think that's necessarily directly related to what I was thinking of, although let me never discourage anyone from hating on stupid traditional gender roles/performances.

I’ve never heard my mother call my father by name. He is always “Papa,” except - now that he’s a grandfather to my nephew, he’s become “Grampy”

i never wanted a mommy. so many men want mommies. i mean i like my mom. she's nice. i actually hugged my mom last weekend and told her how much i loved her and how she was the best mom to me. she's losing her marbles. figure i should use every opportunity. i know for a fact that my dad has referred to my mom as mommy to me and my mom has referred to my dad as daddy to me in conversation as an adult and it always felt a little weird to me but they are definitely the products of the fabulous 50's.

I was talking with a parent friend of ours (lesbian couple w/two kids) about their experience w schools out near Walnut Creek and she was telling me about their 5th grade son getting harassed/called a faggot for having long hair. And I was like "damn some things never change"

are they still near the W.C. or did they move to San Francisco?

so many men want mommies.

troothbomb

some of them want nice, indulgent mommies, and others want domineering, controlling mommies, and they are often willing to pay at least $200/hr for that

Tbtf women are encouraged to regard their husbands as surrogate fathers too. You know, someone big and strong who'll take care of you and protect you and solve your problems. Of course it's ridiculous and insulting to everyone involved to make the gender performance the important thing instead of a reasonable burden of responsibility to your family no matter what gender you perform.

xp lol

I do know one last vestige of my fab 50's parents in me! ALL my kid's friends call me Scott and it has always felt kinda wrong to me. I got used to my kids calling me Scott. And yet, at this late date, it would feel weird to me if all their friends started calling me Mr. Seward. It's rare when I feel like a fuddy duddy like that. When I think about it, it's probably a good thing. Respect for elders nonsense always kinda dumb.

FWIW, I call H "mom" sometimes but only in front of the kids. I can't get used to parents being called by their first names by five year olds.

When my kids start having friends over more regularly, none of them are calling me by my first name. This is non-negotiable.

I guess if they befriend an adult, that adult can call me by my first name, (e.g. "Dan, all of this is totally innocent, why are you calling the cops?")

Your real name is HI DERE, right?

that's Mr. Dere to you, buddy

I actually call her "Ema" (hebrew for mom) in front of the kids, which kind of works bc I didn't call my own mom that, so it doesn't leave me feeling like I am referring to my own mom.

do you write her name high on that silver screen?

again, this is that progressive western mass thing. my kids called all their teachers by their first names too. there must be some serious prog-ed literature on the subject.

loling about mommies

this is one of the reasons some men scare me -- if they cannot fuck you, and you are not their mommy, you don't exist/have no purpose. if you do manage to exist, they let you know they think you don't deserve to exist. this is at the heart of restricting reproductive rights and patrolling women's sexuality in general. see also mike pence and mother or anyone who thinks that way and expresses it openly

it really provokes an existential fear

Sarahell they moved from SF to Pleasant Valley (i think thats it?) A few years,ago

Xp

Scott, it actually comes from Quaker educational theory! (Which had a strong impact on Dewey, et. al.)

As both a Quaker and progressive educator, I rallied to get my students to call me by my first name and the school administration came down on me (in my first year) like a ton of bricks.

Now that I’m much more established, I might try again.

xp - Pleasant Hill?

That's it yes

oh this does all remind me of the time that i was at the local market and the cashier -a woman - said to me "where's your little helper wife?". i was kinda stunned! at first i didn't know who she was talking about. i was picturing a troll woman in a tree knitting. i just said "uh....at home?" i told maria and it STILL bugs her and this was years ago. sometimes we go there and i get out of the car and ask if she's coming with me and she'll say "i don't want to go in there. i'm not your little helper wife." ouch! it stung. i only told her because i HAD to tell someone. the olde tyme residents here are very trad. i mean most of them voted for hillary, but still trad. very quiet on sunday.

xp - lol at living somewhere for at least 20 years and not knowing the names of suburban towns near you, esp. ones that appear on BART system maps.

What can i say all the pleasant places run together

Speaking of tree names, the guy who was one of the philosophical forces of the school my kids went to is Chip Wood:

https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/product/responsive-school-discipline/

lol school discipline + wood chipper

I kind of crack up when my parents mostly say "your dad" or "your mom" when talking about the other to me, but for a while they'd slip up and say a name and go "Mary.. uh, your mom, said.." and by now they just say whatever because I am pretty sure I don't get confused if they refer to each other by first name lol

sorry to sidetrack the maleness thread, but I was thinking how this got super off track when my grandfather was ill because my dad referred to him as "my dad" or "your grandpa"

meanwhile, grandpa had both of us in the room and was asking where my dad was, because his dementia was really cranking up

identity is fleeting

Kind of went on Facebook crusade/rampage within a closed Judaism discussion group today (interesting group that ranges from chassidic to completely secular queer leftists and a few non Jews as well). A couple of people suggested that orthodox laws of gender separation would help prevent assault, which is ridiculous. But I was encouraged by the wide range of responses including from orthodox men who said no, you can only better educate men and root out abusers.

how is this a maleness thread? i thought we'd be discussing boxing and bottle openers.

yeah mista morbz is right if ya ain't discussing the great John L. Sullivan why this thread ain't worth a plug nickel!!!

But I was encouraged by the wide range of responses including from orthodox men who said no, you can only better educate men and root out abusers.

To my great surprise one of the best communications I got about this was from my (conservative) rabbi

I should say: one of the best communications I got from a fellow man

https://splinternews.com/i-didnt-want-to-be-one-of-those-people-i-was-i-am-1819711373

More #metoo in the Jewish community

https://medium.com/@jblistman/when-i-was-nineteen-years-old-elie-wiesel-grabbed-my-ass-10370829c4bd

I think one good thing about all this light is that it helps us get away from the idea that, because there's so much bad politics that enables sexual assault, that you should expect people with good politics to not be sexual assaulters. I don't think it's like that. Their ideas about masculinity were born in the same vat as were yours or mine. Men who struggle for civil rights are different from men who devote their life to corruption and oppression in MANY IMPORTANT WAYS but in this ONE important way they are alike.

I agree.

We really need some way of accepting that men in general do bad things without this collapsing into normalisation or greying everything into business as usual, nothing to see here. Actually I'm not sure about the term 'accept' here either. Urgh. You know what I mean probably.

Sort of acknowledging that there aren't any angels, only a lineup of progressively worse human beings who at one extreme need work and at the other extreme need putting away.

I thought this was quite good also:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2017/10/18/men-of-the-world-you-are-not-the-weather/?tid=ss_fb-bottom&utm_term=.3bcc972fd806